Slippery Rock University students are familiar with an analogy often expressed by administrator John Rindy: You wouldn’t pay at the first window of a fast-food drive-thru and then drive away without picking up your food.
Rindy uses the familiar setting of a fast-food line to make a serious point: College students should use resources available to get advice and support when needed, cultivate relationships with others, and learn from mistakes.
“We reframe failure as learning,” said Rindy, assistant vice president for Slippery Rock’s Center for Career and Academic Progress. “It’s framed by smart action, and using your resources.”
In recent years, Pittsburgh-area colleges have developed ways to help first-year students adjust to college, navigate setbacks and find a sense of belonging as stress and anxiety levels increase among young adults.
But against that backdrop, the University of Michigan’s pilot program to replace traditional letter grades with a pass or no credit system for some freshmen is giving Pittsburgh colleges some pause.
Starting next fall, students entering Michigan’s College of Literature, Science and the Arts will receive pass or no-credit marks on their transcripts for the first semester. Students will still earn private letter grades from instructors, but external transcripts and GPAs will only show if they passed or didn’t earn credit for their first semester.
Michigan officials are trying the move to ease academic pressure, help freshmen adjust to college and help curb an increasing volume of mental health issues among traditional college-aged students.
“It’s a bit of a Band-Aid,” Rindy said. “This whole question is nothing new. If we were doing a better job with young people, this wouldn’t even be an issue.”
Arriving under pressure
Nationwide, roughly 37% to 45% of college students experience above-average stress or clinical stress diagnoses, reports the American Institute of Stress.
“There’s a lot of pressure to do well,” said Rhonda Maneval, Carlow University’s provost. “Students are trying to figure out what it is they’re to do, and what they’re to become. In the midst of all that, they’re learning how to be a college student. When you come in for that first year, the whole experience requires a quick adjustment.”
Freshman year can be difficult even for high-achieving high school students.
“Some of these students come in, and they’ve always gotten A’s through their K-12 experience,” said Shari Payne, Point Park University’s provost. “College sometimes can be a different story. The assignments, the rigor of the curriculum, it’s another level.”
Even academically prepared students can find the transition difficult, she said. And those students are not used to asking for help. Part of Slippery Rock’s strategy is to get students to rethink how they see imperfection, Rindy said.
“We encourage them to develop habits and resources so that if they’re upset with the first C they’ve ever had in their life, they don’t go into panic mode,” Rindy said. “They think, ‘I can use the resources available and take action.’ ”
Slippery Rock encourages that thought process to extend to students’ families. The university communicates ideas for parents to coach their students when they experience stress after a setback.
“It’s not saying, ‘It will be OK,’ ” Rindy said. “It’s, ‘What will you do next? What resources do you think you’ll use? How will you change next week?’ ”
Many colleges, including Pennsylvania Western University, offer an introductory course for first-year students to develop study habits, improve time management and learn about other resources on and off campus.
Leah Chambers, director of PennWest’s First-Year Seminar programming, said her college tracks things like missed classes, missing assignments and low grades so staff can intervene before a problem escalates. Many other colleges have similar warnings in place.
“Grades provide students with important feedback, but we don’t expect first-year students to figure out what to do with that feedback on their own,” Chambers said. “We help students learn to respond to a setback, seek support early and keep one low grade from defining their first semester or their college experience.”
What Pittsburgh colleges are doing
The launch of the Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s Navigators program in 2023 has led to increases in persistence and retention, said Amber Racchini, vice provost for academic success. The program has 17 full-time staff members assigned to new students, and they serve as students’ “go-to person” for navigating college from admission to graduation.
“The early conversation and connection building is essential to acclimating at IUP,” Racchini said. “Having a lot of support embedded in IUP has helped our students address academic needs and anxiety related to grades.”
Colleges offer mental health services to help guide the transition or combat loneliness. Rindy pointed to Slippery Rock’s efforts in helping students find their niche through clubs or work experiences, saying those connections can increase retention.
Rindy also notices a shift in what employers are looking for when hiring. A report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers found GPA screening by employers dropped from 73% in 2019 to roughly 42%.
“Instead, more employers are screening for skills and competencies,” Rindy said.
Maneval highlighted Carlow’s small class sizes — the average class is 14 students — and faculty advising model to build relationships rather than relying on a full-time, professional advisor.
And Point Park students make heavy use of advising, tutoring and mental health resources on campus, Payne said.
Still, Maneval said, college students ask themselves: “Who am I meant to be?”
“This is an important question that many students struggle with, but few institutions move into that space with the student to try and help them figure that out,” she said. “We don’t just want them to find a great job — that’s important — but we want them to find their path in life that’s more than employment.
“We struggle when students leave us prematurely. They had a dream, there was something they wanted to accomplish here, and they didn’t stay. We’re always focused on what are the ways that we can help those students, and we can intervene as soon as possible.”
Could Michigan’s experiment work?
Higher education will be watching to see how Michigan’s plan plays out, Maneval said. The impact of Michigan’s plan will be difficult to measure from a mental health standpoint, but retention rates would be more easily measured.
“We always worry about retaining those students from the first semester to the second because it’s a high-risk time,” Maneval said. “They’re making an assessment of whether (college) is really right for them, and if they should be doing it.”
While it’s too early to say if Carlow would implement such a plan, there could be lessons learned from Michigan’s approach, Maneval said.
“If we think about removing the fear of failure, we might retain more students, and we may have more confident students moving into their future semesters,” she said. “We’re always looking at what is the best thing for our students.”
Past research may favor Michigan’s decision, according to John Radzilowicz, director of Pedagogy, Practice and Assessment at the University of Pittsburgh’s Teaching Center. In 1968 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the highest-ranked universities in the United States, stopped giving grades to first-year students; their class results are marked either “pass” (grade equivalent of A, B of C) or “no record” for D or F.
“The University of Michigan is acting on what educational research and experience have shown for years: that grading and the assessment of learning are two different things,” Radzilowicz said. “Grading alternatives like cover grades, competency-based grading and upgrading improve students’ mental health, academic performance and retention.”
Radzilowicz said the current grading system “is a convention, not a law of nature.” It didn’t become widespread in American higher education until after World War II.
“Michigan appears to be testing something better,” he said. “It’s interesting that in the same semester Michigan covers first-term grades, Harvard announces plans to cap A’s. One institution is being student-centered, the other is putting perception over learning. The research favors Michigan.”
Long-term impacts won’t be noticed unless Michigan continues the pilot beyond next fall, he said.
While Payne, the Point Park provost, gets the argument behind grade covering, she doesn’t think her college will adopt it.
She noted many colleges turned to pass-fail grading in spring 2020 as schools transitioned to new ways of providing education during the covid pandemic. Many universities have since gone back to the traditional letter-grade model.
“This is a test for Michigan,” she said. “If it is successful, we’ll hear a lot more about it. And if it’s not, it’ll just go away quietly.”